Huffington Post Chicago blogger Mike Doyle goes to desperate journalism conferences and sneers at all the flaccid ideas put forth. Which would be fine, if he didn't feel the constructive need to offer any half-baked ideas of his own. But he does.
one weekend afternoon in a modestly-sized group in a shabby conference
hall surrounded by pizza, beer and a phalanx of flip charts and have a
frank discussion amongst ourselves about where we want our sites to go,
how we're trying to get there—and most importantly, how we can work
cooperatively to make sustainability happen. Then we should take we we've learned from each other, package it into a
manifesto and vet it at a community-wide conference. Now that would be
a conference I'd want to attend.
Let's count the silly assumptions, Mike:
• We disparate, self-interested pricks and prickettes won't "get together," for "strategy sharrettes."
• Even if we did: We don't like flip charts, especially when they're organized in a phalanx.
• The last thing we're going to do is have frank discussions with each other about where we want our sites to go. Why? Because whenever we're with other bloggers, we devote all our energies to trying to convince them our site is the bee's knees, and that they should be so lucky to get where we've got.
• A communitywide conference devoted to vetting a bloggers' manifesto on sustainability? That's where you want to go? Come on, Mike, it's summertime. Get a sense of humor. A return to common sense is sure to follow.
What's my idea to solving the crisis in journalism? I'm waiting for a vulgar Ted Turner type to swoop in, this decade or next, and show us all how to make money again. Maybe that's dumb, but it's three times as likely as your bloggers' pizza party—and in the meantime, summers off!